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Johnson, K.B. 2000. Fire blight of apple and pear. The Plant Health Instructor. DOI: 10.1094/PHI-I-2000-0726-01Updated 2015.
DISEASE: Fire blight of apple and pear
PATHOGEN: Erwinia amylovora
HOSTS: Apple, pear, several rosaceous ornamentals
AuthorKenneth B. Johnson,Oregon State University
Erwinia amylovora is a native pathogen of wild, rosaceous hosts in eastern North America. It was the first bacterium proven to be a pathogen of plants. Today, fire blight is an important disease of apples and pears in many parts of the world.
Pear shoot with fire blight. (Courtesy K. Johnson)
Symptoms of fire blight can be observed on all above ground tissues including blossoms, fruits, shoots, branches and limbs, and in the rootstock near the graft union on the lower trunk. Generally, symptoms of fire blight are easy to recognize and distinguishable from other diseases.
Blossom symptoms are first observed 1-2 weeks after petal fall. The floral receptacle, ovary, and peduncles become water soaked and dull, grayish green in appearance. Later these tissues shrivel and turn brown to black. Similar symptoms often develop in the base of the blossom cluster and young fruitlets as the infection spreads internally (Figure 2). During periods of high humidity, small droplets of bacterial ooze form on water-soaked and discolored tissues (see example on fruit, Figure 7). Ooze droplets are initially creamy white, becoming amber-tinted as they age.
Shoot symptoms are similar to those in blossoms but develop faster. Tips of shoots may wilt rapidly to form a "shepherd's crook" (Figures 1 and 3). Leaves on diseased shoots often show blackening along the midrib and veins before becoming fully necrotic. Numerous diseased shoots give a tree a burnt, blighted appearance, hence the disease name (Figure 4).
Infections initiated in blossoms and shoots can continue to expand both up and down larger branches and limbs. Bark on younger branches becomes darkened and water-soaked (Figure 5). At advanced stages, cracks will develop in the bark, and the surface will be sunken slightly (Figure 6). Amber-colored bacterial ooze mixed with plant sap may be present on bark. Wood under the bark will show streaked, brown to black discolorations.
Indeterminate, water-soaked lesions form on surfaces of immature fruit and later turn brown to black. Droplets of bacterial ooze may form on lesions, usually in association with lenticels (Figure 7). Severely diseased fruits blacken completely and shrivel.
Rootstock infections usually develop near the graft union as a result of internal movement of the pathogen through the tree or from infections through water sprouts or burr knots. The bark of infected rootstocks may show water-soaking, a purplish to black discoloration, cracking, and signs of bacterial ooze. Red-brown to black streaking may be apparent in wood just under the bark (Figure 8). Symptoms of rootstock blight can be confused with Phytophthora collar rot. M.26 and M.9 rootstocks are highly susceptible to the pathogen.
Erwinia amylovora is a member of the family Enterobacteriacae. Cells of E. amylovora are gram-negative, rod-shaped, measure 0.5-1.0 x 3.0 mm, and flagellated on all sides (peritrichous) (Figure 9). Physiologically, E. amylovora is classified as a facultative anaerobe. It grows on most standard microbiological media and on several differential media. Optimum temperature for growth is 27°C (81°F), with cell division occurring at temperatures ranging from 5 to 31°C (41 to 88°F). Identification of E. amylovora isolates is based on biochemical tests, inoculation of immature pear fruits and apple seedlings, sequencing of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene and through use of species-specific PCR primers.
On flowers, E. amylovora is an excellent colonizer of the surfaces of stigmas and, to a lesser extent, the surface of the nectary. This reproduction on floral surfaces is called epiphytic growth and occurs without the bacterium causing disease. Epiphytic growth of E. amylovora on stigmas combined with movement of the pathogen from flower to flower by pollinating insects (Figure 10) are two important processes that regulate the incidence of blossom infection. Erwinia amylovora also can survive on other healthy plant surfaces, such as leaves and branches, for limited periods (weeks), but colony establishment and epiphytic growth on these surfaces does not occur. Cells of E. amylovora excrete large amounts of an extracelluar polysaccharide (a major component of bacterial ooze), which creates a matrix that protects the pathogen on plant surfaces. In propagation nurseries, cells of E. amylovora surviving on woody surfaces can initiate disease when scions and rootstocks are wounded during grafting. Erwinia amylovora also can reside as an endophyte within apparently healthy plant tissue, such as branches, limbs, and budwood. Migration of the pathogen through xylem is one mechanism by which floral infections of apple can lead to rootstock infections near the graft union.
Erwinia amylovora overwinters in a small percentage of the annual cankers that were formed on branches diseased in the previous season. These overwintering sites are called "holdover cankers". As temperatures warm in spring, the pathogen becomes active in the margins of holdover cankers. Free bacterial cells are released onto the bark surface, sometimes as visible ooze. Insects attracted to the ooze (e.g., flies) or rain disseminate the bacteria from the canker to flowers.
Stigmas, which are borne on the end of the styles, are the principal site of epiphytic colonization and growth by E. amylovora. During the floral epiphytic phase, the ultimate population size that the pathogen attains is influenced by temperature, which regulates the generation time of the pathogen, and by the number of blossoms in which the pathogen becomes established, which is facilitated by pollinating insects, honey bees in particular. Under ideal conditions, stigmas of each flower can support ~106 cells of the pathogen.
Blossom blight is initiated when cells of E. amylovora are washed externally from the stigma to the hypanthium (floral cup). On the hypanthium, E. amylovora gains entry to the plant through secretory cells (nectarthodes) located on the surface. In pear, the importance of blossom blight is expanded further by the tendency of this species to produce nuisance, secondary or "rattail" flowers during late spring and early summer, long after the period of primary bloom.
This includes shoot, fruit, and rootstock blight. These phases are usually initiated by inoculum produced on tissues diseased as a result of blossom infection. Wounds are generally required by E. amylovora to initiate shoot and fruit blight. Insects, such as plant bugs and psylla, create wounds on succulent shoots during feeding. Strong winds, rain, and hail can create numerous, large wounds in host tissues. Infection events induced by severe weather are sometimes called "trauma blight." Rootstock blight of apple can result from shoot blight on water sprouts or from internal translocation of E. amylovora from infections higher on the tree.
Both primary and secondary infections can expand throughout the summer, with the ultimate severity of an infection being dependent on the host species, cultivar, environment, and age and nutritional status of the host tissues. Young, vigorous tissues and trees are more susceptible to fire blight than older, slower growing tissues or trees. Similarly, trees that have received an excess of nitrogen fertilizer, and therefore are growing rapidly, are more susceptible than trees growing under a balanced nutrient regime. Rates of canker expansion also can be enhanced by a high water status in a tree caused by excessive or frequent irrigation or poorly drained soils. Canker expansion slows in late summer as temperatures cool and growth rates of trees and shoots decline.
Blossom blight is sporadic from season to season owing to the requirement for warm temperatures to drive the development of large epiphytic populations. Several epidemiological models (e.g., COUGARBLIGHT, MARYBLYT) predict the likelihood of blossom blight epidemics based on observed climatic conditions (Figure 11). The models work by identifying the periods conducive for epiphytic growth of E. amylovora on blossoms before infection occurs, and thus are used widely to aid decisions on the need for and timing of chemical applications. Blossom blight risk models accumulate degree units above a threshold temperature of 15.5 (60°F) or 18°C (64°F). Data on rain or blossom wetness during periods of warm weather are also used in the models to indicate more precisely the timing and likelihood of floral infection. Other temperature-based models predict the time to symptom expression after an infection event (i.e., the length of the incubation period) based on heat unit sums. These models are used to time orchard inspections and/or pruning activities.
Effective management of fire blight is multi-faceted and largely preventative. The grower must utilize a combination of sanitation, cultural practices, and sprays of chemical or biological agents to keep the disease in check.
Selection of a resistant cultivar is the most effective method of controlling fire blight. In apple, for example, some cultivars exist that are moderately resistant to the disease (e.g., Red and Golden Delicious). For pears, cultivar choices are more limited because superior horticultural traits (e.g., taste, storage, and marketing qualities) have been difficult to combine with higher levels of disease resistance. In recent years, fire blight has become more common in apples because the spectrum of cultivars grown commercially has expanded and shifted toward those with greater susceptibility to the disease (e.g., Fuji, Gala, Pink Lady). With this shift has come the recognition that popular dwarfing rootstocks for apple, M.9 and M.26, are highly susceptible to E. amylovora. Dwarfing rootstocks with resistance to fire blight are being developed and commercialized (e.g., the Geneva rootstock series from Cornell University). Many ornamental cultivars also show high levels of fire blight resistance.
Vigilant sanitation through the removal of expanding and overwintering cankers is essential for control of fire blight in susceptible cultivars. Removal of overwintering ("holdover") cankers is accomplished by inspecting and pruning trees during the winter.
Prevention of blossom infection is important in fire blight management because infections initiated in flowers are destructive and because the pathogen cells originating from floral infections provide much of the inoculum for secondary phases of the disease, including the infection of shoots, fruits, and rootstocks. Management actions to suppress blossom blight target the floral epiphytic phase. Sprays of antibiotics, streptomycin, oxytetracycline or kasugamycin, have effectively suppressed blossom infection in commercial orchards (Figure 12).
Copper compounds also are effective but applications are commonly limited to the pre-bloom period because copper ions in solution can be phytotoxic to the skin of young fruits. E. amylovora has become resistant to streptomycin in some production areas, limiting the effectiveness of this chemical. Non-pathogenic, microbial epiphytes sprayed onto flowers can preemptively suppress fire blight by colonizing the niche (stigmatic surface) used by E. amylovora to increase its epiphytic population size. The bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens strain A506, is registered and sold commercially for this purpose (BlightBan A506) as is the yeast, Aureobasidium pullulans (Blossom Protect).
In summer, established infections are controlled principally by pruning. Effective control through pruning requires that cuts are made 20-30 cm (8 to 12 inches) below the visible end of the expanding canker (Figure 13) and that between cuts the pruning tools are disinfested with a bleach or alcohol solution to prevent cut-to-cut transmission. Repeated trips through an orchard are necessary, as some as infections are invariably missed and others become visible at later times (Figure 14). Prunings harboring the pathogen are usually destroyed by burning (Figure 15).
In severely affected orchards, cultural practices that slow the growth rate of the tree will also slow the rate of canker development. This includes withholding irrigation water, nitrogen fertilizer, and cultivation. Similarly, practices that reduce tree wounding and bacterial movement can reduce secondary infection. This includes controlling insects such as plant bugs and psylla, limiting use of limb spreaders in young orchards, and avoiding the use overhead sprinklers. Chemicals such as streptomycin or copper can suppress trauma blight if applied immediately after a hailstorm.
Erwinia amylovora is a native pathogen of wild, rosaceous hosts in eastern North America. These hosts include hawthorn, serviceberry, and mountain ash. Early European settlers introduced apple and pear to North America. The first report of fire blight as a disease of apple and pear occurred in 1780, in the Hudson Valley of New York. In California, the disease was first reported in 1887.
Early 19th and 20th century horticultural texts and bulletins recognized fire blight as a serious disease of pear, provided descriptions of symptoms, and outlined pruning practices for control (Figure 16). Nonetheless, in the eastern United States, fire blight proved to be destructively epidemic on pear, limiting the cultivation of this host. Even today, the threat of fire blight restricts commercial production of pear to semi-arid, desert areas west of the Rocky Mountains.
Erwinia amylovora has the distinction of being the first bacterium shown to be a pathogen of plants. Koch's postulates for E. amylovora were fulfilled by J.C. Arthur in 1885, but the genesis of the concept that bacteria can be plant pathogens required the contributions of many scientists (notably T.J. Burrill) and growers over a period extending from 1846 to 1901. E. amylovora is also one of the first plant pathogens to be associated with an insect vector. In the late 1890's, M.B. Waite linked blossom infection to the movement of the pathogen from flower-to-flower by pollinating insects.
During the 20th century, introductions of infested plant material served to establish E. amylovora in Europe, the Middle East, and New Zealand. In 1995, fire blight was first observed in the Po River Valley of northern Italy, which is the largest pear production area in the world. Since 1995, the Italian government has destroyed 500,000 pear trees in an attempt to eradicate E. amylovora. Recently, fire blight has spread eastward from the Middle East to the northern Himalayan foothills of central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan), which is the center of origin for Malus (apple) spp.
Baker, K. F. 1971. Fire Blight of pome fruits: The genesis of the concept that bacteria can be pathogenic to plants. Hilgardia 40:603-633.
Beer, S.V. 1990. Fire Blight. Pages 61-63 in: Compendium of Apple and Pear Diseases and Pests. Jones, A.L., and Aldwinckle, H.S. (eds.). APS Press, St. Paul, MN.
Johnson, K.B., and V.O. Stockwell. 1998. Management of fire blight: A case study in microbial ecology. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 36: 227-248.
McManus, P. and V. Stockwell. 2000. Antibiotics for plant disease control: Silver bullets or rusty sabers?
Smith, T. J. 2015. The development and use of Cougar Blight 1990 – 2010: A situation-specific fire blight risk assessment model for apple and pear.
Turechek, W. W., and Biggs, A. R. 2015. Maryblyt v. 7.1 for Windows: An improved fire blight forecasting program for apples and pears. Plant Health Progress doi:10.1094/PHP-RS-14-0046.
van der Zwet, T., and S.V. Beer. 1995. Fire Blight - Its Nature, Prevention, and Control: A Practical Guide to Integrated Disease Management. U.S. Dept. Agric., Agricultural Information Bull. No. 631.
van der Zwet, T., Orolaza-Halbrendt, N., and Zeller, W. 2012. Fire Blight: History, Biology, and Management, APS Press, St. Paul, MN. 460 pp.Vanneste, J.L. (ed.) 2000. Fire Blight: The disease and its causative agent, Erwinia amylovora. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, UK.


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Bank of America Touted Malcolm Gladwell Talks Without His Knowledge
Journalist Malcolm Gladwell told The Atlantic Wire Wednesday that although Bank of America tapped him to speak at events focusing on small businesses over the past few weeks, he had no idea the corporation crowed about the arrangement in a press release.
Of course, Gladwell's description of the topic might explain why Bank of America's statement seems a little light on details.
"The speech in question was about the history of the rock band Fleetwood Mac," Gladwell said.
As for the claims from critics on Twitter that taking an offer from Bank of America resulted in a conflict of interest, the bestselling author of "Outliers: The Story of Success" maintained that he's got clean hands.
"I don't consult, advise, collaborate or promote," Gladwell said. "But like any number of other writers these days who do speaking on the side, I'm happy to chat about whatever I'm working on to whomever wants to listen."
In the statement, Bank of America noted that Gladwell got an audience approaching 200 at each talk in Los Angeles on Sept. 27, Dallas on Nov. 3 and Washington, D.C. Tuesday.
"I haven't been asked to do anything else," said Gladwell, "and imagine that's it."
Besides, judging from what Tom Kristof -- founder of an assisted-living facility at the SOZO Center in Texas -- had to say in the release about his experience, seeing Gladwell was merely the icing on the cake.
"Between Gladwell's speech, the panel discussion and the opportunity to network with other members of my local community, I found the event to be both informative and a valuable use of any small business owner's precious time," he gushed.
© Copyright IBTimes 2024. All rights reserved.

subset: commoncrawl


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By John Collett
Gift cards are a popular choice of present – they are convenient and almost all the major retail brands have them.
Yet most us have received gift cards for our birthdays or Christmas that we've lost or failed to use before the expiry date. In fact, Australians spend about $2 billion a year on gift cards but between 10 and 27 per cent of cards are never redeemed.
With expired gift cards costing consumers at least $200 million a year, pressure is building on other states and territories to follow NSW and make them valid for a minimum of three years.
From March 31 this year, gift cards and gift vouchers bought in NSW in person and online will have a minimum three-year expiry date.
There will be a transition period of "some months" for those businesses who have pre-printed gift cards with shorter expiry dates with the length of the transition period yet to be released by NSW Fair Trading.
Under the NSW reforms, businesses will still be able to charge an administration fee at the time the gift card is bought.
However, once a card or voucher is issued, there is a ban on any fee for redeeming it.
Others to follow
Consumer group Choice is urging state and territory governments to implement similar reforms to protect shoppers.
"With these reforms making gift cards simpler and fairer for consumers, we hope it signals the beginning of the end of retailers cashing in at our expense," says Choice spokesman Tom Godfrey, speaking when the reforms were announced last year.
"We'd like to see these changes rolled out across the country to make gift cards fairer for all consumers."
A spokeswoman for Victoria's Minister for Consumer Affairs Marlene Kairouz says the Andrews Labor government has called on the federal government to consider the national cross-border trade in gift cards under the relevant part of Commonwealth law.
While consumer protection generally falls within state and territory jurisdictions, the Trade Practices Act and Corporations Act have been used by federal governments to ensure consistent consumer protection standards across the country.
"Given the national reach of many retailers and businesses, we need a national approach to the regulation of gift cards," the spokesman says."It's time for the Turnbull government to take the lead on this issue, and provide a fairer deal for consumers."
A spokesman for Yvette D'Ath, the Queensland Attorney-General who has responsibility for consumer affairs, says the Queensland government is open to working with stakeholders on this issue and to help strengthen protection for consumers.
The South Australian Liberals have promised, if they win election in March, to legislate so gift cards bought in the state would have a minimum expiry date of three years.
Common problems
Writing for The Conversation website last year, Nicole Ibbett, a lecturer in the school of business at Western Sydney University, says the NSW reform would go some way towards solving the problem of unredeemed gift cards, but there are other issues besides short expiry dates.
"Gift card terms and conditions vary widely, making it hard for consumers to understand what their rights and obligations are," she says.
"In addition to expiry dates, common problems with gift cards arise from the terms and conditions and the inability to use gift cards when the retailer becomes insolvent."
In early 2016, Dick Smith Electronics collapsed, leaving many of those holding gift cards out of pocket.
In her research, Ibbett found issues with a wide range of gift card terms and conditions.
Some terms and conditions specify limits on the use of the gift card. For example, the card must be used in store, but not online.
"Consumers unaware of these limitations may be unpleasantly surprised when their gift card is unable to be used," Ibbett said.
"Some retailers offer replacement of lost or stolen gift cards provided proof of purchase or card identification number is available. When the holder of a gift card is not the original purchaser this may be problematic.
"If you do purchase a gift card as a present, you probably should either keep the receipt or pass it on to the receiver along with the gift card."
One-year expiry
Sally Tindall, a spokeswoman for comparison site RateCity, says the most common expiry date is 12 months, with some gift cards offering as little as three months.
"Short expiry dates are the biggest offender, but shoppers also get caught out with postage and activation fees and conditions on where and how the money is spent," she says.
"The other way shoppers end up forfeiting their cash is by only spending part of the value of the gift card. Often the balance left behind is never spent and when the card expires, retailers keep the difference."
Tindall says now the NSW government has stepped in, the pressure is on other states to follow suit. There are cards with no expiry dates, such as those from Apple and Bunnings. The Good Guys and JB HI-FI have recently announced they have increased expiry dates on their cards from 24 months to unlimited and will honour expired gift cards.
Larry Samuels, the managing director of Givex Australia, one of the largest gift card processors in Australia, says most of the retailers that use its gift cards will honour expired cards at the request of the card holder and it is always worth contacting the retailer to see if it will honour expired cards.
He says the "general rule" among his clients is that they are going to apply the three-year expiry date nationally as it is easier for them than having different expiry dates depending on which state or territory their cards are bought.
Miffed at missing gift voucher cut-off date
Barbara Burt, a 31-year-old beauty therapist from Sydney, is annoyed that her gift voucher's one-year expiry date lapsed late last year.
At the time the gift card from RedBalloon expired, Burt was preoccupied as her partner was undergoing knee surgery.
"Things happen in life that are outside of our control," she says.
Burt runs a mobile beauty business and she has gift vouchers for her customers that have no expiry dates.
"It builds good rapport with my clientele," she says.
Recently RedBalloon increased the expiry dates to three years for any voucher bought since October 18, 2017, when the NSW bill mandating minimum three-year expiry dates was passed.
RedBalloon says on its website that experience vouchers, gift vouchers and gift cards bought before that date must be used within the expiry period.
"However, we routinely assess such requests [for extensions] on a case-by-case basis."
Burt intends to contact RedBalloon to see if it will honour her gift card.


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For almost a decade, Daniel Burton has led Early Day Miners, who still feel like one of the best kept secrets in contemporary American independent music. To say that Burton approaches songwriting like a Great American Novelist is not to say that, like Lou Reed, he has a large cast of sleazy but cartoonish characters, as his way of keeping it real. No, Burton melds landscape and history in a way that can only be compared to William Faulkner or Cormac MacCarthy. In fact, the Offshore from 2006 was a personal album of the year, joint with _Ys_ by Joanna Newsom, but impossible to choose between because it seemed like its darker, masculine counterpart – an elegy in the midst of destruction.
So why haven't you heard of them? Ultimately, Early Day Miners may take a long time to gain the recognition they deserve – their determination and integrity is pure punk-rock, but the sound and songs may not be so palatable to indie-fans who assume that integrity = trashiness. Think Bedhead without the irony… but Codeine without the depressive inertia; Dave Pajo (of Slint, Aerial M, Papa M) playing as all his different incarnations, at the same time; Talk Talk (circa Spirit of Eden, and Laughing Stock), if the playing had the heaviness and precision of US-hardcore. Are Early Day Miners slowcore, then? This article (from an Italian website) seems to think so. Then again, it wouldn't be inaccurate to mention the decidedly unhip 'Brothers in Arms' (the song) by Dire Straits, or 1990s Peter Gabriel without the schmaltziness of the lyrics – literally, the core of each, beneath the "blues" and "world-music" signifiers. So, let's just say this is the one independent band who won't compromise by not sounding accomplished...
Way back when, Burton was apprenticed to Daniel Lanois, probably best known to DiS-readers as the producer who ensured that U2's mid-80s left-turn into Americana would result in some actual classics (The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree), rather than excruciating pastiche. Burton could have had a career making Grammy-winning platinum albums, but instead kept his skills for the underground, and cult indie bands, including Okkervil River and Songs:Ohia; effectively, making him one of the most important people on the other side of the glass since Steve Albini.
Early Day Miners have a new album out in early 2009, and their Daytrotter session in 2008 indicates that it's going to be another triumph for intelligent, literary post-rock… or as the inclusion of EDM in this week's series of articles indicates, slowcore. As a shorthand, Offshore resembled the stark desert soundscape of Ghost Tropic by Songs:Ohia, or the final suite of instrumentals from Mogwai's Come on Die Young (a performance of the album in its entirety is available, here). Early Day Miners may have lightened up a little (and sped up – their MySpace page now calls them Indie/Rock, rather than Ambient/Post-rock), but such is the detail of the arrangements and production, the new album seems to have moved closer to early-Yo La Tengo. In any case, a rundown of the albums is well overdue.
Placer Found (2000)
"moving north through the snow / to the destination / but still a-ways to go…" ('Placer Found')
More of a state of the soul than a collection of discreet songs, Placer Found remains a remarkable debut, and might easily have been named after its final track, 'Desert Cantos'. Like Codeine (on The White Birch) and Low (on The Curtain Hits the Cast), EDM capture the mood of a place, and if they seem to be entering similar sonic territory, then that's not to say they haven't found their own musical idiom, to match a set of lyrics that sketch the tranquillity and loneliness of the Midwestern states. With its powerful but restrained drumming, hushed vocals, and delicate lead-guitar lines, Placer Found is slowcore reaching towards post-rock; in fact, the 12 minute closer is just that (think Mogwai's 'You Don't Know Jesus' at halfspeed).
Elsewhere, clear drones underlie the buoyant and trebly guitar lines of 'Longwall' and the meandering figures of 'In These Hills', both of which resemble the spare instrumentals sketched by Aerial M / Papa M (i.e. Dave Pajo, formerly of Slint, with whom Burton would later collaborate). Certainly, 'Placer Found' sounds like the best material from Pajo's first full-length collection of songs, Whatever, Mortal, and linking the main nodes in the map of slowcore, you could easily persuade a hopeful Slint fan that 'Stanwix' is a lost track from Spiderland, or The For Carnation, as Burton whispers about a family coming together to sit, say Grace, and eat, over impossibly slow music that seems about to break into rock, when the cymbals first crash, but instead yield up a gorgeously lazy slide-guitar solo, that gradually subsides, and almost mews like a cat in its final few bars. (7/10)
Let Us Garlands Bring (2002)
Burton had already established himself as an intelligent observer of place, but his second album was richer in detail, as well as being his most personal in its emotional candour. Verses unfold like haiku, with each cluster of images linking Place – Season – Feeling. The emotions are often: a private pain, an indeterminable sense of "something wrong", or the loss of a "forgotten faith". In a sense, you don't need these abstract cues: breath by breath, Burton exhales his soul into the concrete features of the world, losing himself among billboards and powerlines, rivers that are "rusted" ('Centralia') or "blinding white", until he has a "vacant soul" (both from 'Santa Carolina'). See below, though, for a longer examination of 'Offshore' – an eight-minute masterpiece of songwriting (equalled only by Sun Kil Moon's 'Carry Me Ohio') that was later expanded into a 38-minute album. (8/10)
Jefferson at Rest (2003)
Slightly lacking in focus, EDM's third album may not have found a new direction, and resisted any of the tricks (or, more simply, the long tracks) that made its predecessors more dramatic. Nonetheless, every one of its songs is a beautifully crafted thing, with or without any post-rock climax. In other words, it's an album that succeeds in conveying its intended impression: of peace, and perhaps even fulfilment of the historic promise to grant liberty to all in America, even if it's impossible to erase the shame. It may help to know that Burton's father is a history lecturer, and the previous album had ended with 'Light in August' (named after a William Faulkner novel), hinting that the references aren't scenery – monuments you pass, in transit – but signs the past is alive inside the present; that's 'Jefferson at Rest', after all, not "Jefferson: dead". Then again, it's equally true to say that some of the signs of human habitation you pass lack any connection to history – as much a home as the shell of a hermit-crab – not because these are the people excluded, but those who don't even have a connection to the past through so much as a corrugated iron church. See the second song: "factory worklights / miles of windblown acreage / wind like a siren / howling through home-steads / wash---ed a---way // gravel roads trailing / move to the river / far across the border / oil light portraiture / all--- fall--- down…"
Considerations of how this fits with "slowcore criteria" aside, it makes most sense to describe Burton's music (especially on Jefferson) as a kind of emotional minimalism, not to be mistaken for the oppressive sound of many slowcore bands – the relentless beatings of misfortune that contrast, yet explain, the crippling depression of Codeine's lyrics; the suffocating atmosphere of Cat Power's first three records; the inner fantasies of revenge soundtracked by Low on their own first three (with the bass like blood pulsing in your skull). In fact, Antony Hegarty's immaculate new album, scored by Nico Muhly, provides the best comparison to the closing track of Jefferson at Rest, where Burton sings clear but quiet vocals over a guitar-line so discreet as to be ambient, with an identical second vocal, almost imperceptible, much lower in the mix beneath it than one would ordinarily set the levels when double-tracking – pulling at it, rather than boosting it. Demonstrating much the same economy as the best Low lyrics, Burton sings: "Community is on the rise; / you left me out, / in my mind. / You're distant; / far behind." Long, peaceful drones, almost indistinguishable from actual voices, begin at this point, and then the main vocal resumes: "What can we do / to bring us together? / To make us whole…? / What can we do / to bring us together?" What indeed? That false-vocal hints at the beginning of speech, infinitely protracted… eternally about to say the right words, which may in fact be any words, so long as they're spoken at all. (7/10)
All Harm Ends Here (2005)
"escape is simple / just leave" ('We Know in Part')
Aiming to write some of his most conventional rock-songs, whilst retaining the (characteristically slowcore) "power-in-restraint" of previous albums, Burton managed to deliver his most captivating set from start-to-finish. The songs are darker than ever, yet it's not an oppressively bleak record (hence, "escape is simple / just leave"), and a closer listen to the record dispels any sense of self-pity, or the failed rockstar's tendency to heighten their tragedy as if only that would constitute great art… all of which makes this a great comfort to anyone weary of rock's histrionics. As Burton continues to sing/murmur, on 'We Know in Part', it's possible to find a "secret world" if you listen closely. The guitars may snarl on 'All Harm', which picks up the tempo (okay, only as much as a Bedhead / New Years track), and the low-mixed lead guitar is overdriven to scratch and growl, but the mantra he's singing is actually: "all harm--- / ends here--- / old faith--- / forgiv---en". In a sense, then, this is a record about internalizing the lessons of the dark years, and moving on. Curiously, having established himself as one of the foremost realists among all lyricists – and Confessionalism isn't the same as Realism, however sincere – a couple of songs (and the instrumental 'The Purest Red') allude to a vampire that seems to personify urban decay. Previously, the rusted and cracked human environment that Burton depicted had seemed always on the brink of being reclaimed by nature – that a decrepit factory is no more permanent and no more complex than an animal's nest or burrow – but on this record, he discovers the malice lurking in the city, hence the subtle move toward more Gothic imagery, and a hint of Joy Division. (8/10)
Offshore (2006)
The fifth album by Early Day Miners, Offshore, slipped out in August 2006, to no fanfare, and very few reviews. For listeners already aware of the high plateau they'd been occupying for several years, there was every expectation of another fine record, but no indications that this would be a record to rank alongside Joy Division's Closer (1980), Songs: Ohia's Ghost Tropic (2000) or Sigur Ros' ( ) (2002); all of them records that transcend the idea of the album as a-collection-of-songs-by-some-people-in-a-room-somewhere, and instead come across as an experience in its own right.
Anyone familiar with the song 'Offshore' from the 2002 album will realize that most of the 2006 album's lyrical content is taken from there, albeit spread across two tracks, now, and the climax of the earlier song is re-worked for two massive post-rock numbers. Writing and recording Let Us Garlands Bring in 2001, Burton had been unable to respond immediately to the events of September 11th, but found that the song Early Day Miners had been closing their sets with for years had an added resonance after the massive betrayal of the people of New Orleans by the Bush regime. The lyrics below are no longer personal memories, but fragments of an oral history… or an urban archaeology, washed up after the floodwaters retreat:
"Twisted trail of fire / I'm losing you to your desire / in rooms---, with--- ocean views // A family in peril / broken and destroyed within / er---ased in warm--- concrete // Rusted oak and dragonflies / a masquerade ball / a Mardi Gras mask, a cheap façade / white--- heat and misery…"
('Return of the Native')
Returning to those albums by other artists for a minute though (Closer, Ghost Tropic, and ( ) ), there's both a musical and a lyrical continuity here, if you think of portentous lyrics like "here are the young men / the weight on their shoulders" (Ian Curtis), the imagism of "the ocean's deep nerves" (Jason Molina), and Jonssi's distended vocables democratically inviting you to find exactly as much solace as you need, the perfect words that should have been said. As you'd expect from those comparisons, and the EDM reviews above, the bass and drums are worthy of Hook & Morris, the guitar and organ drones are layered into a detailed soundscape receding into the infinite distance, the guitars are expressive even when the strings are just being stretched and scraped, or the guitarists are manipulating feedback (as in the first three minutes of 'Hymn Beneath the Palisades' before the delayed-guitars start squawling, and then the main riff arrives, almost at the five minute mark.)
Unlike those three albums, on which the darkness increases track-by-track, as they deliberately lengthen, and settle into ever more sombre riffs (or protracted guitar freak-outs) Offshore has a curious symmetry to its sequencing. Book-ended by a pair of 9-minute post-rock masterpieces that charge along like a train seen from a distance (track 1) and a train bearing the listener toward a dark and skyscraping city, the lyrical content of the album amounts to two poems of desolation sung by male and female voices (tracks 2 & 4). Each of these "poems" roughly follows the melody that's the album's leitmotif, although each without a chorus. It's a sign of the album's integrity – demanding to be experienced as a single suite – that the tracks are cut-off so that they can't be played individually without a jarring break, and the third track (between the two "poems") is almost entirely a chorus:
Give up
Giv-ing in
Run-ning hand in handA-way from Destruction
In-to your Desertion
Give in-to Temptation
Se-ver all Relation('Sans Revival' – see MySpace to stream)
Here, at last, is hope. Is this the hope of a deserter from the US Civil War… or a contemporary immigrant, escaping one of the world's countless wars (many of them precipitated by US intervention)? Is this the hope that led them to places like New Orleans, where they may yet be victims of "geographic racism" (i.e. the selective neglect of poor quarters, or the siting of environmental hazards near ghettoes). Is this, then, the hope that dissolves all historical distinctions when it's You (plural) against the world? For listeners without such experiences, it's no less powerful – like The Smiths' "this love is different because it's our love", whatever your persuasion – but with the world actively pursuing. In short, an album reaching out to everyone.


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Since Independence Day falls on a Wednesday this year, my family decided to celebrate a little early. Of course, a 4th of July celebration just wouldn't be the same without firing up the 'ol grill, which definitely means that pork ribs will be on the menu!
McCormick Spices, Kraft Foods, Tyson Fresh Meats and the National Pork Board have banded together to help celebrate those "rulers of the rib" with the Dibs on My Ribs! Pork Recipe Cookoff Contest. Keep reading to learn more!
My husband is quite the grillmaster in our home and has an amazingly delicious recipe for pork ribs. He calls it "Rainbow Ribs" and it never fails to satisfy because there's always something for everyone. I've included it below and if you get the chance, give it a try...your mouth will thank you! :drool:
If you have a tantalizing, original rib recipe too, then be sure to stop by the Dibs on My Ribs! Pork Recipe Cookoff and throw your name in the hat for one of two grand prizes. There are two rib recipe categories (indoor and outdoor) and a grand prize winner will be selected from each.
What's up for grabs? How about $6,000 in Walmart gift cards and a trip for 2 to Memphis, TN to attend the Memphis in May BBQ Event. Don't worry, professional chefs are not eligible to win, so this is definitely a contest geared for all of those backyard grillmasters. Make sure to get those creative cooking juices flowing soon, because this contest ends on August 12, 2012.
As with any contest, there are several important rules that must be followed. Here's a brief overview of the ones I thought were especially important, but make sure to check out the official rules page for all of the nitty gritty:
- All recipes must incorporate a minimum of three ingredients, including at least one 5-rib portion of pork spareribs, at least one McCormick spice or seasoning product and at least one Kraft Foods BBQ Sauce (unless you are submitting a rub BBQ, in which case you are not required to use a BBQ sauce.)
- The recipe must be an original work created by the entrant and cannot have previously won a contest or other promotion, or have been submitted as an entry in any contest that required the entrant to assign rights to the recipe to the co-sponsors of the contest.
If you don't want to enter the Dibs on My Ribs! Pork Recipe contest, that's okay, but please be sure to stop by and vote for your favorite. There are plenty of great recipes already submitted, so if you're looking for a tried-and-true original pork ribs recipe, this is a terrific resource to check out.
Now, get ready for yum with the "Rainbow Ribs" recipe!
Rainbow Ribs
- 4 lbs. Tyson pork spare ribs
- 4 tbsp. McCormick's Grill Mates Sweet & Smoky Rub
- Light sprinkling of McCormick's Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning
- Kraft Foods Thick 'n Spicy Original Barbecue Sauce
- American cheese slices
- Avocados
- Bacon slices
- Ranch dressing
- Salt and pepper (to taste)
- Lime juice (to taste)
- Keep ribs together as one slab and apply 4 tbsp. McCormick's Grill Mates Sweet & Smoky Rub to entire slab.
- Lightly sprinkle the slab with McCormick's Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning.
- Cook on grill with low indirect heat for approximately 2 hours or until rib meat reaches an inner temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Divide the rib slab evenly into 5 sections of the "rainbow" and apply the following toppings (in this order):
- 1st section - Coat top of ribs in ranch dressing of your choice
- 2nd section - Coat top of ribs with small strips of American cheese and wait for cheese to melt
- 3rd section - Coat top of ribs with an avocado paste made from mashed avocado, salt, pepper and lime juice (to taste)
- 4th section - Coat top of ribs with bacon slices
- 5th section - Coat top of ribs with Kraft Foods Thick 'n Spicy Original Barbecue Sauce
Disclosure: I received a Dibs on My Ribs prize pack from One2One Network to thank me for my participation. No other compensation was received. This post is based on my own personal experiences with this item and is completely honest and objective. |
I'm a former 7th grade Science teacher turned stay-at-home mom that lives in Houston, Texas. I am married to my college sweetheart and have a beautiful daughter named Riley, who definitely keeps me on my toes! I am also involved in starting a small business which would both manufacture and sell an invention that I've patented, called Toothpaste 2 Go. I love interacting with my readers and hope to learn as much about you as you learn about me!
Melissa @ Mommy Living the Life of Riley!
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Franco Modigliani |
[An updated version of this biography can be found at Franco Modigliani in the 2nd edition.]
Franco Modigliani, an American born in Italy, won the 1985 Nobel Prize for two contributions. The first was "his analysis of the behavior of household savers." In the early fifties Modigliani, trying to improve on Keynes's consumption function, introduced his "life cycle" model of consumption. The basic idea was common sense, but no less powerful for that reason. Most people, he claimed, want to have a fairly stable level of consumption. If their income is low this year, for example, but expected to be high next year, they do not want to live like paupers this year and princes next. So in high-income years, Modigliani argued, people save. They spend more than their income (dissave) in low-income years. Because income begins low for young adults just starting out, then increases in the middle years, and declines on retirement, said Modigliani, young people borrow to spend more than their income, middle-aged people save a lot, and old people run down their savings.
The second contribution that helped Modigliani win the Nobel Prize was the famous Modigliani-Miller theorem in corporate finance (see Corporate Debt). Modigliani, together with Merton Miller, showed that under certain assumptions, the value of a firm is independent of its ratio of debt-to-equity. Although Modigliani claims his two articles with Miller were written tongue-in-cheek, that is not how Miller, the Nobel Prize Committee, or financial economists took their two articles. Their insight was a cornerstone in the field of corporate finance. Modigliani also wrote one of the articles that started the rational expectations school of economics (see Rational Expectations). In a 1954 article he and coauthor Emile Grumburg pointed out that people may anticipate certain government policies and act accordingly. Modigliani strenuously objects, though, to how far the rational expectations school has run with this basic insight. Modigliani considers himself a Keynesian. A cartoon on his office door in 1982 said: "With your permission, gentlemen, I'd like to offer a kind word on behalf of John Maynard Keynes." Modigliani left fascist Italy in 1939, because he was both Jewish and antifascist. He earned his Ph.D. from the New School of Social Research in 1944. Modigliani taught at the New School from 1944 to 1949 and was a research consultant to the Cowles Commission at the University of Chicago from 1949 to 1952. He was a professor at Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1952 to 1960, at Northwestern University from 1960 to 1962, and at MIT from 1962 to the present. He was president of the American Economic Association in 1976.
Selected Works
(With Merton Miller.) "Corporate Income Taxes and the Cost of Capital." American Economic Review 53 (June 1963): 433-43. (With Merton Miller.) "The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance, and the Theory of Investment." American Economic Review 48 (June 1958): 261-97. "Fluctuations in the Saving-Income Ratio: A Problem in Economic Forecasting." In Studies in Income and Wealth, no. 11. 1949. (With Albert Ando.) "The Life Cycle Hypothesis of Saving: Aggregate Implications and Tests." American Economic Review 53 (March 1963): 55-84. (With Emile Grumburg.) "The Predictability of Social Events." Journal of Political Economy 62 (December 1954): 465-78. (With Richard Brumberg.) "Utility Analysis and the Consumption Function." In Post-Keynesian Economics, edited by Kenneth Kurihara. 1954. |
The cuneiform inscription in the Liberty Fund logo is the earliest-known written appearance of the word "freedom" (amagi), or "liberty." It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.


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Notwithstanding section 3302 of title 31, beginning in fiscal year 2005 and thereafter, such funds as are received by the Southwestern Power Administration from any State, municipality, corporation, association, firm, district, or individual as advance payment for work that is associated with Southwestern's transmission facilities, consistent with that authorized in section 825s of this title, shall be credited to this account and be available until expended.
Quick search by citation:
16 U.S. Code § 825s–4 - Southwestern Power Administration; deposit and availability of advance payments
Editorial Notes
Section was enacted as part of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2005, and also as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005, and not as part of the Federal Power Act which generally comprises this chapter. Section is based on the proviso in the paragraph under the headings "POWER MARKETING ADMINISTRATIONS" and "Operation and Maintenance, Southwestern Power Administration" in title III of div. C of Pub. L. 108–447.
Prior Provisions
Provisions similar to those in this section were contained in the following prior appropriation act:
Pub. L. 108–137, title III, Dec. 1, 2003, 117 Stat. 1858.


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Seventh Doctor Comic Door Plaque
Skin of metal, and a body that will never age or die. These metal signs are not quite as tough as the Cybermen, but they are sturdy and you don't need to run away from them. Perfect for bedroom doors or the walls of your favourite gaming room.
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Subject to terms and conditions, items can be returned within 30 days. Personalised items that are damaged or defective can be returned, please read our terms and conditions for full details.


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Years before the Air Force faced a crisis with the oxygen systems on its premier stealth jet, a group of Air Force officers warned that the expensive F-22 Raptor could choke its pilots. Yet the Air Force, in the name of saving money, let the problem fester.
As far back as 2005, a group of Air Force technical experts calling themselves the RAW-G, for Raptor Aeromedical Working Group, warned that the oxygen system on the F-22 needed an upgrade. The current system has "been known to cause problems with delayed ear blocks and acceleration atelectasis," which is the technical term for what pilots came to call "Raptor Cough." They pushed for a digital controller to regulate the flow of oxygen into what's called OBOGS, for On-Board Oxygen Generation System, and an accompanying software upgrade, according to a blockbuster Associated Press report.
The solution the RAW-G proposed would have cost approximately $100,000 per plane. The F-22 Raptor costs, depending on how you count, between $137 million and $678 million per plane. "The cost was considered prohibitive in light of other items that people wanted funded for the F-22," the head of the RAW-G, who retired from the Air Force in 2007, told the AP.
Since the F-22 Raptor entered service in 2005, at least 23 pilots have suffered so-called "hypoxia" incidents, meaning that they've had serious problems with oxygen in the aircraft. One of those incidents was related to the 2010 death of an Alaska-based pilot, which the Air Force still classifies as a "pilot error." Hypoxia led the Air Force to briefly ground the entire Raptor fleet twice in 2011, and restrict on how high pilots can fly the F-22 earlier this year. In May, two Raptor pilots went on 60 Minutes to say the "vast, silent majority" of their colleagues felt unsafe flying the plane. The next month, two U.S. legislators revealed that Raptor pilots experience a hypoxia rate at least nine times higher than their colleagues flying other aircraft.
The Pentagon announced in July that the hypoxia problems didn't stem from the stealth jet's oxygen systems, but rather from a valve in the pressurized vests Raptor pilots wear at high altitudes, which resulted in a restricted oxygen flow. But that doesn't mean the F-22 Raptor is totally off probation. Although the Air Force sent a contingent of Raptors to Japan — partially as a demonstration of faith in an aircraft that still hasn't seen combat — it's got to fly below 44,000 feet, so pilots won't have to wear the problematic vests. And the Air Force is continuing to retrofit the Raptors with backup oxygen systems while fixing the vests.
It's unknown if the RAW-G's $100,000-per-plane solution would have actually prevented the hypoxia problem, particularly if it truly does stem from a flawed valve on a vest rather than the aircraft itself. But at the least, the RAW-G's work indicates that there were people within the Air Force — "dozens of experts in life support, avionics, physiology and systems safety, along with F-22 aircrew and maintainers," in the AP's characterization — who were deeply worried about the potential for the jet to choke its pilots.
"I am interested in the potential physiologic/health issues related to flying and fixing the F-22s," wrote Daniel Wyman, a flight surgeon and now a one-star Air Force general who founded the RAW-G, around 2007. By the time the rest of the Air Force shared his concerns, the Raptor fleet had been grounded on multiple occasions; at least one pilot had died; and the Air Force had a major humiliation for its premiere stealth fighter.


text: The News section of the webpage is designed to keep students, parents, staff, and community members informed about the activities and events happening in the West Prairie Schools. Visit this webpage on a regular basis to learn about recent events or check for updates on upcoming events. Click on the What's New tab to locate recent news articles!


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Writing from the Venice Film Festival last month, Stephanie Zacharek posted a review of Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity for the Phoenix New Times, calling Cuaron "one of our greatest living directors." Zacharek states, "I'm thoroughly sick of 3D movies and I would have been happy to never have to look at one again. But I wasn't prepared for the way Cuarón uses it to explore both wonder and despair, in Gravity. Forget stretched-out blue people, Peter Max-colored flora and fauna, and explosions comin' at you: This is what 3D was made for."
Zacharek compares Gravity to Brian De Palma's Mission To Mars, as well as to Philip Kaufman's adaptation of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, the latter of which she calls "superb." Here are the last three paragraphs from her review:
Gravity is both lyrical and terrifying, and sometimes Cuarón even merges the two, sending us into free fall along with his characters. No space movie arises from a vacuum, and the obvious comparative pulse points for this one include The Right Stuff and Brian De Palma's sorely underloved Mission to Mars. The Right Stuff isn't so much about space as about the space program, but Cuarón — who co-wrote the script with Jonés Cuarón, his son — captures the mingling of duty and curiosity that motivates any human being who actually makes it into space. And Cuarén, just as De Palma was, is alive to the empty-full spectacle of space and to the workaday poetry of the words astronauts use to describe it. At the time Mission to Mars was released, detractors made fun of the allegedly stiff dialogue. But have you ever heard astronauts — who are usually men of science, not Iowa Workshop grads — speak when they get that first long-distance view of planet Earth as a glowing orb? They grab for the simplest words, which are often the best...
Cuarón is even more of a romantic than De Palma, if such a thing is possible. He finds all kinds of ways to link survival in space with life on Earth. There, as here, anyone might have reason to feel loneliness, despair, fear, or exaltation, and homesickness — for a place, a person, a planet — is universal. Incidentally, the first person who tries to tell me Gravity is "unrealistic" or "implausible" is going to get a mock-Vulcan salute and a kick in the pants.
Given the amount of balderdash we have to swallow just to get through a typical summer movie season, taking a small leap of faith and imagination with Cuarón should hardly be a problem. Gravity is harrowing and comforting, intimate and glorious, the kind of movie that makes you feel more connected to the world rather than less. In space, no one can hear you scream. But a whole audience can hear you breathe. And that is a wondrous thing.
The New Zealand Herald's Dominic Corry also brings up Mission To Mars in his review of Gravity:
[Cuarón's] Children of Men famously features a bravura action sequence during which the camera maintains a single shot for almost four minutes without cutting. It's one of the coolest action scenes in cinema history, and when word emerged that Cuarón would be employing similar techniques in Gravity, film fans the world over rubbed their hands together in delight. Gravity isn't all long tracking-shots, but they make up the majority of the film, and enhance the tension to no end.
One of cinema's biggest proponents of the extremely long tracking shot is Brian De Palma, who I wrote about last week. Long tracking shots are a cool idea, but can be very difficult to pull-off without calling attention to the filmmaking. Hitchcock was a fan too; as was Robert Altman; but De Palma's voyeuristic style always best suited the technique in my mind - until Children of Men came along, that is.
Brian De Palma was also behind a widely-derided (but secretly awesome) film which now stands as a noteworthy antecedent to Gravity - 2000's Mission To Mars.
There's a full-on sequence near the beginning of the film which involves a space walk and a desperate attempt to grab on to a satellite. When details about Gravity started emerging, I hoped that it would be a movie-length version of this scene. And it is. In the best possible way.
Updated: Thursday, October 3, 2013 1:20 AM CDT
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Autumn may not officially begin until Sept. 22, but for kids in Union City, the summer effectively draws to a close on Thursday, Sept. 5, when they return to school.
This year they will find a renewed focus on technology. Smart Boards are available in all classrooms, providing more interactive learning. The Smart Board is a wall-mounted screen connected to a computer and is used much like a regular computer touchscreen, allowing files to be displayed and manipulated, or text written with the tip of a finger.
"We are making a big push to provide technology to enhance our educational programs, to enhance instruction and the delivery of all our curriculums," said Stanley Sanger, superintendent of schools in Union City. "In grades three and four, all students will be working with iPads, including special needs students. Every teacher in Union City has been issued a laptop for planning and instructional purposes."
Preparing for the future
The State of New Jersey continues to aggressively push forward with new specifications for student education, including delivery and monitoring of test results utilizing the internet, and standardizing content of classes across the state.
"We've made a big push to revise all our curriculums to meet the requirements of the new state initiative for college and career readiness," said Sanger, "preparing all students for college, increasing the challenge and rigor in classrooms so students are best prepared for college and work opportunities."
And that's only the beginning. "We're also working closely establishing college connections with Fairleigh Dickinson University, Seton Hall, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rutgers and others, establishing college connections so students can be afforded college experience while attending high school," he said.
Safety and security
Of course, student safety is a major concern everywhere these days. In Union City, school security programs are an ongoing focus, with upgraded safety protocols and procedures. Students and staff are trained to understand and address safety issues and respond appropriately if a situation arises. "We've upgraded existing camera systems and provided new ones where there was a need," said Sanger.
To further address student needs, a new Union City Student Sanctuary at Union City High School opened in May of 2013. Located at the corner of Kennedy Boulevard and 24th Street, it is a colorful, peaceful oasis in the midst of the city. Sanger describes it as "a park, an outdoor setting, a sanctuary setting with a small amphitheater, a reading center, a performing center. It's an extension of the school, an extension of learning."
New facilities
The 2012 school year saw significant changes to the campus structure in Union City. Two smaller schools, Hudson and Gilmore, were closed for renovations, with their students relocated to the new Colin Powell Elementary School on New York Avenue and 15th Street.
"This school year we will be carrying out renovations on the Hudson and Sara Gilmore schools," explained Sanger. "Both facilities are over one hundred years old. We're doing upgrading and putting on additions in our efforts to create the best possible safe learning environments for our kids. This will be taking place during the school year."
While there is a possibility the schools will be ready for the 2014 school year, it seems more likely they will reopen in September of 2015. At that time elementary school students will remain in the Colin Powell School while the renovated facilities take on new uses.
"Right now we rent Woodrow Wilson School from Weehawken for our gifted and talented students," said Sanger. Once the Gilmore school reopens, those students will transfer there. "Hudson will be used for an adult education center. We'll also see what the needs of the district are at that time."
School list
The following schools in Union City open on Sept. 5:
• Eugenio Maria de Hostos Center for Early Childhood Education (Grades Pre-Kindergarten – Kindergarten)
• Jefferson School (Grades Pre-Kindergarten – 4)
• Veterans' Memorial School (Grades Pre-Kindergarten – 5).
• Thomas A. Edison School (Grades Pre-Kindergarten – 6)
• Robert Waters School (Grades Pre-Kindergarten – 6)
• Colin Powell Elementary School (Grades Kindergarten – 5)
• Woodrow Wilson School (Grades Pre- Kindergarten – 8)
• Washington School (Grades Kindergarten – 6)
• Roosevelt School (Grades Kindergarten – 6)
• Emerson Middle School (Grades 6 – 8)
• Union Hill Middle School (Grades 7 – 8 )
• José Martí Freshman Academy (Grade 9)
• Alternative Design Academy (Grades 9 – 12)
• AEA (Enrichment & Advancement) (Grades 9 – 12)
• Union City High School (Grades 10 – 12).


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Starting at around 8:36 PM ET last night, as Hurricane Sandy began to flood the streets of lower Manhattan, many New Yorkers began to receive an unexpected message: a text alert on their mobile phones that strongly urged them to seek shelter. It showed up on iPhones:
This Emergency Alert just popped up on my phone. Ten seconds later, the TV went out. Here we go. #sandy #ny1sandy twitter.com/mbchp/status/2…
— Mike Beauchamp (@mbchp) October 30, 2012
…and upon Android devices:
Emergency alert on my phone. instagr.am/p/RYvlmJxJec/
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) October 30, 2012
While the message was clear enough, the way that these messages ended up on the screens may not have been clear to recipients or observers. And still other New Yorkers were left wondering why emergency alerts weren't on their phones.
Here's the explanation: the emergency alerts that went out last night came from New York's Personal Localized Alerting Network, the "PLAN" the Big Apple launched in late 2011.
NYC chief digital officer Rachel Haot confirmed that the messages New Yorkers received last night were the result of a public-private partnership between the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM), the CTIA and wireless carriers.
While the alerts may look quite similar to text messages, the messages themselves run in parallel, enabling them to get through txt traffic congestion. NYC's PLAN is the local version of the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS) that has been rolling out nation-wide over the last year.
"This new technology could make a tremendous difference during disasters like the recent tornadoes in Alabama where minutes – or even seconds – of extra warning could make the difference between life and death," said FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, speaking last May in New York City. "And we saw the difference alerting systems can make in Japan, where they have an earthquake early warning system that issued alerts that saved lives."
NYC was the first city to have it up and running, last December, and less than a year later, the alerts showed up where and when they mattered.
The first such message I saw shared by a New Yorker actually came on October 28th, when the chief digital officer of the Columbia Journalism School, Sree Sreenivasan, tweeted about receiving the alert:
[photo] Nice to get alert from NYC.gov about evacuation (also nice it's not about our area). #sandy twitter.com/sree/status/26…
— Sree Sreenivasan (@sree) October 28, 2012
He tweeted out the second alert he received, on the night of the 29th, as well:
[photo] COOL TECH: Loud alarm and screen alert about #sandy making landfall in NYC. (cc @digiphile) twitter.com/sree/status/26…
— Sree Sreenivasan (@sree) October 30, 2012
These PLAN alerts go out to everyone in a targeted geographic area with enabled mobile devices, enabling emergency management officials at the state and local level to get an alert to the right people at the right time. And in an emergency like a hurricane, earthquake or fire, connecting affected residents to critical information at the right time and place are essential.
While the government texting him gave national security writer Marc Ambinder some qualms about privacy, the way the data is handled looks much less disconcerting than, say, needing to opt-out of sharing location data or wireless wiretapping.
PLAN alerts are free and automatic, unlike opt-in messages from Notify NYC or signing up for email alerts from OEM.
Not all New Yorkers received an emergency alert during Sandy because not all mobile devices have the necessary hardware installed or have updated relevant software. In May 2011, new iPhones and Android devices already had the chip. (Most older phones, not so much.)
These alerts don't go out for minor issues, either: the system is only used by authorized state, local or national officials during public safety emergencies. They send the alert to CMAS, it's authenticated, and then the system pushes it out to all enabled devices in a geographic area.
Emergency alert message on my phone: "Take shelter now!" #eastvillage #sandy instagr.am/p/RYza7_gzGZ/
— Ola Forsstrom-Olsson (@olaforsstrom) October 30, 2012
Consumers receive only three types of messages: alerts issued by the President, Amber Alerts, and alerts involving "imminent threats to safety or life." The last category covers the ones that went out about Hurricane Sandy in NYC last night.
According to the FCC, participating mobile carriers can allow their subscribers to block all but Presidential alerts, although it may be a little complicated to navigate a website or call center to do so. By 2014, every mobile phone sold in the United States must be CMAS-capable. (You can learn more about CMAS in this PDF). Whether such mobile phones should be subsidized for the poor is a larger question that will be left to the next administration.
Take shelter #emergencyalert twitter.com/CJP_/status/26…
— Cristina(@CJP_) October 30, 2012
As more consumers replace their devices in the years ahead, more people around the United States will also be able to receive these messages, benefiting from a public-private partnership that actually worked to deliver on improved public safety.
At least one New Yorker got the message and listened to it:
"If 'act' means stay put, then why yes I did," tweeted Noreen Whysel, operations manager Information Architecture Institute. "It was enough to convince my husband from going out…."
Here's hoping New York City doesn't have to use this PLAN to tell her and others about impending disaster again soon.


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The government organization charged with keeping nuclear power safe is having a meltdown. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission consists of five commissioners who direct the work of hundreds of nuclear engineers and other experts. They write the rules for how nuclear reactors operate.
Now four of those commissioners say the chairman of the NRC is a bully who's destroying their ability to do their job.
The feud at the NRC is long-standing, but it boiled over last week when a letter the four commissioners wrote to the White House was made public. In no uncertain terms, they said they simply can't stand NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko.
At a meeting of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday, all five sat down together in a House hearing room and listed their grievances:
"The chairman's continued outbursts of abusive rage directed at subordinates within the agency staff — all members of the commission, including me, have been on the receiving end of this conduct," said Kristine Svinicki, one of the NRC commissioners.
"I'm most concerned that the chairman has made a regular practice of interfering with the ability of the commission to obtain information from the NRC staff," said Commissioner William Magwood. He also said that Jaczko once berated three female staff members to the point of tears.
And Commissioner William Ostendorff had this to say about Jaczko: "It's about bullying and intimidating behavior towards NRC career staff that should not and cannot be tolerated."
While they stopped short of calling for Jaczko's resignation, the commissioners said they feared for NRC's ability to function.
Congressional members of the committee were more blunt. Republican Jason Chaffetz of Utah read the charges the commissioners made in their letter to the White House and demanded answers from Jaczko:
Chaffetz: "True or false: Ignored the will of the majority of the commission contrary to the statutory functions of the commission."
Jaczko: "I have never ignored the will of the majority in an area that is a commission policy."
Chaffetz: "I'll take that as a false. True or false: Interacted with us, his fellow commissioners, with such intemperance and disrespect that the commission no longer functions as effectively as it should."
Jaczko: "Well, I'm a very passionate person about safety."
Jaczko's response wasn't enough for Chaffetz.
"We've got people who are suffering under this gentleman right here," Chaffetz said. "He is not living up to the duties. I don't believe you. I think the safety and security of this nation is too important. I think you should resign."
However, when the commissioners were asked whether, in fact, the turmoil at NRC had compromised safety at power plants, they said no.
And committee member John Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat, noted that the four commissioners might share some blame. Jaczko's supporters in Congress — and he has many, having worked there before he went to the NRC — have accused the other commissioners of dragging their feet in releasing NRC's report on the Fukushima accident and what it meant for U.S. reactors:
Jaczko: "I think we have had some challenges with ..."
Tierney: "Did you feel that there was an attempt to slow down the release of that report on Fukushima?"
Jaczko: "There definitely was an attempt to prevent the release of the report."
Tierney: "It seems we've got a problem with everybody here."
Jaczko denied the accusations, except to say that he can be outspoken about safety. But advocates of nuclear power have targeted Jaczko because he helped deep-six the idea of putting a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, called Yucca Mountain.
A view from the outside of the Washington hothouse comes from Peter Bradford, who spent five years as an NRC commissioner. He says this isn't just about Republicans vs. Democrats.
"There is a sort of nuclear party that transcends Republican and Democratic labels," Bradford says. "The four signers of the letter are all very much in the nuclear party, and the chairman is not."
When asked at Wednesday's hearing if they could patch this up, all four commissioners said maybe. And in fact, according to the NRC website, the commission is described as a "collegial body" that regulates nuclear safety. On Thursday, a Senate Committee will query the witnesses again.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


text:
Has anyone seen the film Paper Tigers yet? I really want to see it, and I'd love to hear from folks who already have. It doesn't have the kind of distribution that makes it easy to go see, but you can host a screening or buy the film (hard copy or digital) for educational purposes. Click through for info about the film:
From the website:
More than two decades ago, two respected researchers, clinical physician Dr. Vincent Felitti and CDC epidemiologist Robert Anda, published the game-changing Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. It revealed a troubling but irrefutable phenomenon: the more traumatic experiences the respondents had as children (such as physical and emotional abuse and neglect), the more likely they were to develop health problems later in life—problems such as cancer, heart disease, and high blood pressure. To complicate matters, there was also a troubling correlation between adverse childhood experiences and prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse, unprotected sex, and poor diet. Combined, the results of the study painted a staggering portrait of the price our children are paying for growing up in unsafe environments, all the while adding fuel to the fire of some of society's greatest challenges.
However, this very same study contains the seed of hope: all of the above-mentioned risk factors—behavioral as well as physiological—can be offset by the presence of one dependable and caring adult. It doesn't need to be the mother or the father. It doesn't even need to be a close or distant relative.
More often than not, that stable, caring adult is a teacher.
It is here, at the crossroads of at-risk teens and trauma-informed care, that Paper Tigers takes root. Set within and around the campus of Lincoln Alternative High School in the rural community of Walla Walla, Washington, Paper Tigers asks the following questions: What does it mean to be a trauma-informed school? And how do you educate teens whose childhood experiences have left them with a brain and body ill-suited to learn?
In search of clear and honest answers, Paper Tigers hinges on a remarkable collaboration between subject and filmmaker. Armed with their own cameras and their own voices, the teens of Paper Tigers offer raw but valuable insight into the hearts and minds of teens pushing back against the specter of a hard childhood.
Against the harsh reality of truancy, poor grades, emotional pain, and physical violence, answers begin to emerge. The answers do not come easily. Nor can one simply deduce a one-size-fits-all solution to a trauma-informed education. But there is no denying something both subtle and powerful at work between teacher and student alike: the quiet persistence of love.
Unfortunately there are no clips available to embed, but you can watch a trailer on their homepage.


text:
When More is Less in Small-Business Advertising
At the risk of sounding like a heartless parent, I have to admit that I find the amount of paperwork that comes home from my son's school a bit overwhelming. In addition to that, several emails arrive daily from teachers outlining various school activities, sporting events and fund-raisers. Given the sheer amount of information that arrives from the school, I have to admit I don't read it all. In fact, I don't read much of it (yes, I should be ashamed). My day of reckoning finally came however when my wife asked me about an important parent–teacher conference that I missed.
The point of my poorly-executed paper monitoring is to illustrate how many small businesses treat their audience. Somewhere deep in the midst of numerous ads is a valid, persuasive marketing piece. However, one's tendency to over communicate can mask or nullify any credible message.
I've always maintained that your marketing serves as somewhat of a training course for your audience. If you happen to be a business that inundates your audience with a particular type of message, you may be in danger of training your audience to tune out. If you need more proof, just think back to the flood of political ads we recently endured.
Here are a few pointers to bring more balance to your communications:
Overdoing social media I'm always puzzled by businesses that join social media platforms to use their accounts for unabashed, unrestrained marketing plugs. Should you promote your business? Absolutely. However, it is totally unnecessary to use some of these automated programs that spit out scores of tweets and posts every five minutes. Scale things back a bit and provide fun, educational or interesting info. Remember that social media is primarily about sharing – not taking.
Too many sales If you are looking to illicit a response from consumers, having the biggest sale of the year every week, is not the way to get that done. Creating too many sales events can actually be a bad thing. As stated earlier, you run the risk of training your customers – making them feel as though missing one sale isn't really a major issue if there are other ones coming shortly thereafter. Spread your sales events out a bit. If you do, you're likely to get a more passionate and immediate response from your audience.
Junk mail and spam Some small businesses rely on direct-mailers or email in order to get their message out. If you happen to be one of them, your formula for success will mirror the advice given for the previous areas. Less is more. This is especially true for email marketing. In fact, email marketing is one of the most volatile areas in which to advertise. Tough spam laws and the ease in which your communications can be blocked aid in this volatility. With that in mind, your email blasts should be infrequent. If you can discipline yourself to follow this measured approach, you'll find that your "unsubscribes" are held to a minimum.
Walter Dailey is a proven creative strategist. He's the lead consultant and executive producer for Dailey Sound Vector, a creative services organization that specializes in jingles, radio ads and music licensing development for small and mid-sized businesses. Walter is finally on Twitter. Follow him here: @wrdailey


text:
THEY TRAVELLED A long way from the continent of Westeros to get there, but cast members of HBO's Game of Thrones at Friday's Comic-Con panel remained tight-lipped on spoilers.
Fans were told they would not get any plot details about the upcoming fifth season.
They did play a blooper reel and a video introducing nine actors that have been added to the series.
Among the new faces are relatives of the late Oberyn Martell, also known as the Red Viper, played by Pedro Pascal.
Alexander Siddig is Doran Martell, the lord of Dorne and older brother to Oberyn.
Toby Sebastian has been cast as Prince Doran's son, Trystane Martell, the heir to Dorne.
Jessica Henwick will play Nymeria Sand, Rosabell Laurenti Sellers is Tyene Sand, and Keisha Castle-Hughes is Obara Sand.
Game of Thrones leads the pack of Emmy nominations with 19, including best drama series.


text:
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For more information or a free estimate, call us now. Our skilled decorative and stamped contractors will help you choose the right option for your home.


text: On December 4, hundreds of veterans plan to "deploy" to Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota to join in protest against the planned Dakota Access Pipeline. The event, Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, is a call for veterans to "assemble as a peaceful, unarmed militia" to "defend the water protectors from assault and intimidation at the hands of the militarized police force and DAPL security." The organizers hope to prevent progress on the construction of the pipeline as well as draw national attention to the cause. If built, the $3.7 billion pipeline would carry 470,000 barrels of crude oil a day through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. Proponents say the pipeline would significantly decrease US reliance on foreign oil. Opponents say it would destroy culturally significant Native American land and have environmental impacts, including potential water contamination and greenhouse gas emissions. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and its supporters have been protesting the project for months. The protests have been largely peaceful but turned violent on Sunday. Support has flooded in from all over the country on social media under the hashtag #NoDAPL. In 10 days, the gofundme campaign for the veterans' event has raised $43,870 of the $100,000 goal. The money will go toward food, transportation and supplies for the veterans who attend. "It's time to display that honor, courage and commitment we claim to represent," the page reads. "It's time for real patriots. Now more than ever, it's time for anyone and everyone to lead." Leading the troops Wesley Clark Jr., a veteran, screenwriter and activist, created the event along with Michael Wood Jr., a retired Baltimore police officer and Marine Corps veteran who advocates for police reform. "I'm going for religious reasons. I'm not a leader. I'm not in charge. We are self-organizing this," Clark said. They are hoping for a turnout of 500, but, "if we only have 20 or 30, that's what God provides us," he said. Clark decided to take action after an elder from Standing Rock called him about the protests. "When she described what was going on, it brought tears to my eyes," he said. "People are concerned about the way the elders who are praying are being brutalized, and what we are doing to the planet." Wood said, "If we don't stand up for the oppressed, that's the snowball that starts that leads to everyone else's oppression. "It doesn't matter if you are a libertarian, a conservative, or a progressive, this is everyone's fight," he said. Protection for all Americans Veterans will be making the trek from all over the country to attend. Jade Emilio Snell, a veteran of the Marine Corps, will be attending on behalf of the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leadership Council, which is dedicated to improving health, economic development, and education for tribes in the Rocky Mountains. "I've been watching the news, how they're spraying everybody and using rubber bullets, and these guys are fighting for what they believe in and as a veteran we took an oath," he said. "We're not just there to protect Americans in foreign countries. We're here to protect this country inside of it, too." Snell said he is not against the pipeline project, but opposes how it is being executed. "I believe in the pipeline but not how they are doing it. They don't have to go under the water. There are a lot of other options," he said. "It's about protecting Americans. If that pipeline bursts, it will affect our culture, our drinking water, everything." Remaining peaceful On the event's Facebook page, organizers told attendees: "Bring Body armor, gas masks, earplugs AND shooting mufflers (we may be facing a sound cannon) but no drugs, alcohol or weapons." The page also emphasizes the importance of working together, and says the event will not tolerate hate, violence or divisive behavior. "In the ultimate expression of alliance, we are there to put our bodies on the line, no matter the physical cost, in complete nonviolence to provide a clear representation to all Americans of where evil resides," reads the Operation Order for the event. "The water protectors are leading the way against this same evil which we must all face globally, saving ourselves and our children from the apocalyptic outcome of climate change." "No group in the country has served a greater percentage in US military than Native Americans," said Wood. "We need to support them."


text:
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10. DVD: Buffering
Never before has a fast broadband connection been so important. Enterprising gay couple Aaron (Conner Mckenzy) and Seb (Alex Anthony) find their love life getting increasingly more, ahem, progressive when they begin filming their sex sessions for an Internet pay-per-view site in an effort to erase their heavy debt in this flesh-filled British comedy. TLAVideo.com
9. THEATER: Fela!
From the genius of out director-choreographer Bill T. Jones comes this exhilarating musical that pays tribute to the legendary musician, who used his extraordinary music to rebel against the military regimes in his native Nigeria. The Tony Award-winning hit settles into Los Angeles's Ahmanson Theatre for a five-week run beginning December 14. For tickets visit CenterTheatreGroup.org.
8. FILM: Young Adult
Charlize Theron, in her most challenging role since lesbian serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster, stars as Mavis, a reckless writer who returns to her hometown intent on stealing her former boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) away from his wife and newborn. Instead, she forms an unlikely bond with fellow misfit Matt (Patton Oswalt), who, although straight, was the victim of a gay bashing at their high school. Diablo Cody's script is a consistently surprising, twisted delight, which as directed by Juno's Jason Reitman results in the year's squirmiest comedy.
7. TV: Barbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2011
Never mind the inescapable Kardashians. Also on Walters's annual list is our favorite sitcom couple, Modern Family's Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet, as well as our most colorful ally, Katy Perry. Find out who Walters will name as her number 1 on ABC December 14.
6. DVD: Big Love:The Complete Collection
The compelling drama about a polygamist (played by Bill Paxton) and his wives (portrayed by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Chloe Sevigny), created and executive-produced by gay couple Will Scheffer and Mark V. Olsen, ran for five seasons on HBO. It wasn't until season 4 that fans saw a gay storyline, but it was a doozy when power-mad Alby (memorably portrayed by Matt Ross) fell apart over Dale Tomasson (Ben Koldyke).
5. DVD: Mangus!
Fat Girls filmmaker Ash Christian
returns with this festival favorite about the behind-the-scenes
squabbles to stage a small-town production of Jesus Christ Spectacular. Christian told The Advocate he
drew inspiration for the campy comedy, which he also wrote, "from
growing up an outsider and my love for small-town community theater ...
and my love for hometown stardom." Out actress Heather Matarazzo stars
with Jennifer Coolidge and Leslie Jordan. If you need more incentive to
watch, John Waters makes a deus ex machina cameo -- literally!
4. THEATER: A Molly Jolly Christmas
Comic Andrea Alton stars as Molly "Equality" Dykeman, New York City's favorite Percocet-popping poet/elementary school security guard/train wreck who tries to make it through her first holiday special and find the lady of her dreams. Each show will feature appearances by a roster of guests, including porn actor and singer Colton Ford and Manhattan scenester Michael Musto, as well as accompaniment by her backup dancers, the Mollettes. New York's Laurie Beechman Theatre, December 2-22. For tickets visit SpinCycleNYC.com.
3. BOOK: Laid Bare
What can't Tom Judson do? A true Renaissance man, he can act, sing, dance -- he's even been an award-winning porn star (as Gus Mattox). The former Advocate columnist has also proven to be an adept, insightful, and exceptionally witty writer, as this collection of essays on every conceivable topic ably demonstrates. Order Laid Bare on Amazon or purchase an autographed copy on Judson's blog.
2. MUSIC: Glee: The Music 7
The seventh cast album from the Fox musical behemoth might be its most accomplished yet. Highlights include Darren Criss's spirited rendition of the Tom Jones hipster classic "It's Not Unusual" and Naya Rivera's plaintive take on k.d. lang's "Constant Craving."
1. MUSIC: Gavin Creel, "Noise"
The Tony Award-nominated Hair actor teams with songwriter Robbie Roth to make beautiful noise with this rousing equality anthem. All proceeds from the sale of the single will go to benefit Broadway Impact, the grassroots organization mobilizing for marriage equality that Creel cofounded. Watch the video here, and for more information visit GavinCreel.com.
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